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HAIKOU, Feb. 22-- Rain and falling temperatures since Thursday afternoon have brought more worries to passengers stranded by heavy fog in south China's Hainan Province. A prolonged heavy fog has disrupted ferry services on the Qiongzhou Strait, a major gateway to the island province, affecting tens of thousand of passengers, with many of them heading back home after spending their Spring Festival holiday on the island. According to the government of the provincial capital of Haikou, as of 4 p.m. on Thursday, more than 14,000 cars were still waiting at the city's three ports, with some having already been stranded for over 14 hours. The number increased from the morning as more cars joined the queues to leave Hainan for Guangdong Province via the strait. Huang Maocai waited in a queue stretching about one kilometer with his truck loaded with peppers, which he was attempting to transport and sell in markets in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong. "I arrived here yesterday afternoon at about 2 p.m. The rain will obviously make the traffic worse. Maybe I will have to wait until tomorrow morning to get on a boat," he said, adding he is afraid that the delay will affect the quality of the peppers. A passenger surnamed Hu, from Nanjing City, was on holiday with her family in Hainan. Now the family is waiting to get across the strait. "It's getting colder now, and I'm afraid that my kid could catch a cold," she said. | 
